Recent Posts on Education

Our psychiatric inpatient care system is insufficient and often detructive. But the inpatient population is not a wealthy, vocal, or well-organized pressure group. In our current cultural moment, without a strong voice in the Halls of Power, you may well end up wandering aimlessly down the corridors of an ill-staffed and ill-equipped hospital ward, talking to yourself.

Former writer for the L.A. Times Laurie Becklund, age 66, died on February 8th from metastatic breast cancer. As she lay dying, she wrote a scathing op-ed, published after her death, denouncing breast cancer 'awareness.' Indeed, most awareness campaigns overlook several key facts about breast cancer, facts that make a world of difference. #Metsmonday.

When we speak of someone being "resilient," we tend to think of it as a character strength. But what is resilience anyway, and what does it take to weather the setbacks in life? A look at the research reveals much...

What you see is often not a matter of the stimuli that are in front of you, but a matter of your expectations. The “affair of the dress,” and whether you see it as white-gold or blue-black is just another example of our top-down brains.

How can we protect society against a few committed radicals who can disrupt society by marshaling powerful communications networks? In the good old days, we tracked the movement of physical assets as early warning signs of trouble. What can we do now, when weapons are intangible and untraceable? Might it be possible to mobilize the mainstream as a balancing force?

My mother would often warn me, “Now Sheila, you don’t want to be too clever for your own good.” Obviously she equated “cleverness” with something dangerous. She was much more interested in how people had reacted to my dress after a party, “Did they like your dress?” she would ask, rather than my report card.

We’d all like to think that when we see something bad happening that we’d step forward to render aid. But in reality most of us don’t. And although some people won’t take the initiative to help, they will take the time to photograph or videotape the event and post it on the internet. Why?

"Searching for Bobby Fischer" is a movie about greatness in chess. But more than that, it is about maintaining compassion as one pursues excellence. It is also a caution to parents who may be tempted to overly identify with their children's success.

SeaWorld attempted to censor talks at the 14th International Conference of the American Cetacean Society (ACS) last November that criticized them in the areas of the ethics of captivity and their business practices. Dr. Thomas White, who was one of the presenters being closeted, has now posted his presentation for all to see. It's well worth the time to view and share it.

"I don’t know what happened, my Sweet Girl is gone. Yesterday she left in the morning and didn’t even say good-bye. She just left. I waited all day yesterday and she never came home, and today she’s still not home. I am really, really sad. I don’t even know what I am going to do with myself."

I had a cerebral bleed causing me to black out resulting in a serious automobile collision. Months later I had brain surgery. I was told by my doctors I was permanently brain damaged. Determined to get better, I set out on my journey to regain my life. So I experimented with a variety of different approaches to treatment, and got better!

If today we choose to show others how similar we are to them instead of how different, we may prove their dehumazing thoughts wrong, break the vicious cycle of dehumanization, and prevent tomorrow’s violence by creating a situation that reduces the motivation for conflict.

In The Hungry Mind, Engel draws on the latest social science research to understand why curiosity is nearly universal in babies, and less evident in school. Although most children learn more when their curiosity is piqued, “schools do not always, or even often, foster curiosity.” But in an era that prizes quantifiable results, curiosity is not likely to be a priority.

Some social and developmental psychologists have claimed that people—even children—naturally think like scientists. I find this claim implausible because: people are naturally religious rather than scientific; everyday thinking frequently deviates from scientific reasoning; and science is a relatively recent cultural development.

When kids create their own meaningful projects, the learning is personal.
When kids are fed prefabricated skills and constantly tested (via computer), the learning is "personalized."
The latter is profitable for corporations, but not so great for our children.

Today’s educational system is contributing to an undesirable and unanticipated problem—the production of many achievement-oriented, high-performing students who are, at best, mediocre learners. This is a bold and controversial claim that demands substantiation. beginning with what distinguishes good students from good learners.